Matsui's Consecutive Game Streak

I was at this game, and man, was I ticked. Of course Torre would pick the one game I could go to to start Bubba Trammell in place of Matsui! It was nice that he came in later, hit an RBI double, and made a nice catch on line drive.

I sat in the Metrodome's left field general admission "bleachers," and got my first really close up live view of Matsui's defense. I'd seen him at a Nichi-Bei yakyuu game, and in Game 2 of the 2000 Nihon Series, but I was always fairly far away. It was interesting to note that he plays kind of like an infielder. He sets himself as the pitcher goes into his wind-up, and then makes the slightest of jumps as the ball reaches the plate. He was not exactly breaking in any direction; I think he was basically getting himself on the balls of his feet and getting his body in motion if the ball is hit to him. Oddly enough Bernie Williams didn't do anything like that.

Check out Peter Gammons' latest article on ESPN.com [Link - warning: annoying pop-up ads on non-Open Source browsers].

According to his sources, Hideki Matsui is ranked the top leftfielder in the AL.

Um... isn't it a little early to make such claims?

Thanks for the great input. The baseball media had been saying that Matsui gets great jumps on balls without pointing out any reasons. And it is a well known fact that Bernie Williams makes up for his average jumps whether it is in the outfield or off first base with his speed.

By the way, did you notice any large contingents of Japanese fans at the game? Do you think they were tourists or people living in that area?

- By the way, did you notice any large contingents of Japanese fans at the game? Do you think they were tourists or people living in that area?

It was a game on Easter Sunday, so the crowd as a whole was fairly small. There were a fair number of Japanese there, most of whom I would hazard live in the area. A few families and a lot of college age kids. The Twin Cities has a relatively good-sized population of Japanese students at the various colleges and the University of Minnesota.